Stupid
by ncfan
Summary: Hiyori was so stupid, but then, Shinji was stupid too, and he was the one who had let her fall. Spoilers for 377 and 383.


**Characters**: Shinji, Hiyori.**  
Pairings**: implied Shinji x Hiyori.**  
Warnings/Spoilers**: Spoilers for Chapter 377 and Chapter 383.**  
Timeline**: Chapter 377, takes place during Fake Karakura Town arc.**  
Author's Note**: As much as I hope Hiyori survives, unless Orihime shows up quick it's not going to be good (though it's possible—and this is highly debatable—that she may be able to raise the dead; just wondering, with what Grimmjow did to Loly and Menoly the first time they attacked Orihime, one can't help but wonder if they were injured or dead), because as good as Unohana is, I'm not sure even she can "reattach" Hiyori.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

_Stupid… So stupid…_

He always knew she'd snap one day. Not shatter or break, just snap. It was inevitable, after all she had been through, that something would click in her head and make her go into a berserk rage she wouldn't have time to climb out of.

Shinji just never expected it to be today.

Hiyori went and did exactly what Shinji told her _not_ to do, tearing into battle without realizing that there was a long range specialist standing at just the right range from her.

Her blood had flown across the clear blue sky, a harrowing streak of scarlet—why was there scarlet? It wasn't sunset yet.—, and Shinji had barely recognized his own hoarse voice when it screamed her name, fearing she'd never be able to answer him again, before he'd caught the top half of her body and gone streaming down to earth amongst the ruins, a nihilist's perfect paradise.

_Stupid… Why couldn't she listen to me, just for once? Why couldn't she just think with her head for a second and realize what was going to happen?_

Hiyori was lifting her head, horrible, harsh laughs coming with the bubbling blood out frothing at her lips. She was _apologizing_ to him. She was telling him she was sorry, and Shinji could only stare at her, horrified, as she muttered meaningless words that should have been coming from him.

_Why couldn't Hiyori have just thought? Why couldn't she have seen what was going to happen? Why was she so stupid?_

Her eyes closed.

_Why couldn't I stop her?_

Shinji had feared this day since the moment he'd drawn breath in the human world, feared it far more than one with a dead heart should have been able to. Been terrified that Hiyori would lose it, that she'd do something reckless and end up paying for it. He'd prayed that day would never come.

The day of reckoning was on him, and Shinji wasn't sure what to do.

The scene had gone as if in slow motion.

Aizen put one too many taunts in the air.

Hiyori charged.

Shinji screamed her name, and tried to catch her, pull her back.

He couldn't get there in time.

Gin, that man Shinji remembered as a creepy little kid, struck.

Hiyori went flying in two different directions.

A thousand different outcomes were tearing through Shinji's ravaged mind, all the ways the scene could have played out, should have played out.

One feature remained the same.

He should have gotten there in time.

But he hadn't.

There was no more breath in her lungs. Shinji didn't dare try to check for a pulse, instead willing himself to believe that Hiyori was still alive, that she'd make it out of this one alive, that she'd live to hit him over the head with her sandal again and that she'd live for them to have a nasty argument again.

Shinji prayed that Hiyori would live to fill her lungs with breath again.

…_Stupid! So, so stupid! Why didn't you run faster? Why didn't you stop her? Why didn't you stop the blade? Why didn't you take the hit?_

…

_Why couldn't you save her?_

The world crashed in on Shinji again, and he was amazed to feel blood running through his dead veins for the first time in decades. It was roaring in his ears, a great black wave of rage that swallowed him whole and wouldn't spit him out.

As his muscles began to work again and his lungs filled up with boiling, angry air, Shinji silently thanked Hiyori for giving him the excuse to do something stupid.


End file.
